Last month I had jury duty and I’ve learned how to get kicked off a jury if selected. I wear a white shirt with tie and a suit. Sometimes I shine my shoes, too. That’s it. I don’t know why it works but I suppose it’s because everyone else shows up in blue jeans and T-shirts and I stick out like a sore thumb.

Anyway, yesterday my wife had jury duty and since the court house had moved to a new location and I had just been there, I offered to driver her. The county jury services will pay for parking if you park in the correct parking garage, so I did. We walked the couple of blocks to the court house and I took her to the jury pool room - a large room that sits about 500 people. The deal was that I would leave her and come back for her when she called. Since she had a juror’s badge I asked her to get my parking stub stamped so I wouldn’t have to pay and told her that the stamp machine was at the end of the long counter where the clerk was sitting. So she went over there and she stuck the parking stub in the machine that she saw there and it did the “CLUNK” thing and the clerk said, “Actually, that’s our staple machine. I’ll explain the parking stamp machine at 12 noon.” My wife had the afternoon jury duty with a show time of 12 noon. So I look at the parking stub and sure enough, it has a staple in it. The time is something like 11:40 so I ask the clerk if I can stamp the stub now and the clerk said, “Nooooo, I’ll explain it at 12 noon.” So I explained to her that I drove my wife down and was now going home and didn’t see any reason to wait 20 minutes to get the stub stamped. She acquiesced politely and I got the stub stamped and thereby saved four bucks. We stepped out into the hall to say our goodbyes and I was telling my wife that I remembered this woman from my jury duty and how firmly she ran the jury pool.

Here’s a woman that deals with 500 people in the morning and another 500 people in the afternoon. No one wants to be there and has a reason why they can’t be there. No one knows what’s going to happen next and could really care less. Yet this woman keeps everything flowing smoothly, addresses everyone’s concerns and never gets rattled. Then it hit me. I have to read her face.

I go back and stand at a discreet distance. She’s moving around so much that I can’t get a fix on her but I finally picked up a couple of things. First, her eyebrows were only half long. What I mean is they were easy to see toward the middle part of her face, but the outer half of her brows were almost missing. The outer half was there, but the density of the brow hair was very low. That tells me that she loses interest about half way through a project. She was definitely a short range person. The brows were also fairly thin in width telling me that, in her thinking, she tended to take on one thing at a time. Second, her hose was short. From the point where the nose connected to face, (somewhere between the eyes), to the bottom of her nose was relatively short. That, again, told me that her preferred work environment with short range projects. In other words, this was the perfect woman to deal with 500 people, for four hours, in the morning and another 500 people, for four hours, in the afternoon.

Dad and I are sitting in the local Starbucks in Denver. This is his third year without Mom and I try to visit him every two or three months. We had been in this store several days in a row, and the clerk noticed. She seems friendly that morning and strikes up a conversation. I tell her that I can read her face and she’s ready. I give her a brief rundown of what I see and she’s duly impressed.

Fast forward three months. We walk into the same Starbucks and the same clerk sees us and not only remembers us, but remembers our drinks and the face reading! The power of face reading is amazing. I wish I had known face reading when I was dating because it would have saved a lot of time - and it would have really been valuable in my work. For instance, this clerk had a trait that said that she had enormous persistence. Once she starts a project she never lets go until it’s finished. I mean, she’s like a bull dog - grab ahold and hang on! She was astounded when I told her that. How could any stranger walk into the store and be able to tell her that? It’s in her face, that’s how.

In this case, it’s the eyebrows - again. If you consider the brows as beginning near the center of the face and moving outward to the outside of the face, then her brows started fairly thin and grew wider as they moved away from the center. The also became thicker and more pronounced. That’s the opposite of most eyebrows. Think of someone you know who as the ability to stay with a project until it’s done - even if it takes years. Bet their eyebrows have this characteristic shape.

I just watched Michelle Kwan announce her departure from the Olympics. Apparently she left because of an injury that prevented her from giving her best - at least that’s suppose to be the story. Okay, what’s the real reason? Is it the injury or has she lost her confidence. After all, she’s been competing a long time now.

Her right eyebrow has a slight, but unmistakable, angle signaling that her public personality is one of being in charge - in this case read “very competitive”. Also, it’s an even brow meaning that it’s about the same thickness along its length. That shows persistence, attention to detail and the ability to consider more than one detail at a time. Her left brow shows her private side - the private side being the part that no one sees. It’s the same as the right except the need to be in charge.

All this tells me that she probably isn’t backing away with lack of confidence. Her injury probably is distracting enough that she can’t do the quality performance required in the Olympics. She’s a quality person backing out to so as to not hold back the team’s chances. Good on her!

So - my wife and I are sitting in Starbucks on a Sunday morning and we were setting by the window next to the drive-through. Cars were lined up and I was checking out the drivers as they pulled through for their lattes. It was good spot to watch the drivers because I could get a nice look at the face profile. I was explaining the nose profile of a driver to my wife, who was feigning interest, when the driver noticed our interest. She looked at us with curiosity so I held up the book I was reading so she could see the cover. The book was about face reading. She laughed. We had just shared a moment with a stranger … and it was fun.

There have been many small events such as that since, but I think that’s the one that sort of captured my interest. Since then I have found that most people want me to read their faces. It’s always fun with a lot of statements such as, “That’s right!” or, “How did you know that!”

I have a new appreciation for nature, now. What we do, what we say, what we feel and what we think are mirrored in our faces - no doubt about it.